Any one use the "Cold Heat" solding gun?

[Burt Alcantara]

I had a few electrical joins that needed soldering so I picked up the Cold Heat thingy from HF. I put fresh batteries in it and proceeded to solder up the connections.

Nothing happened. All the lights went on as indicated but I couldn't get the solder to melt anywhere. I followed all of the instructions and even made a few tests with copper wire. Same thing. Nada.

As this was advertised on TV all over the place I can't believe this is a total scam.

If anybody is using this please let me know what I'm doing wrong, otherwise, another trip back to HF. This time, I think will be the last time I set foot in that store.

BTW, I picked up an iron at ACE. Worked fine and had some interesting tips for pyrography.

Thanks,
Burt

[Mike Heidrick]

Bought one from RS. It soldered 3 spots. Then it melted the plastic collet on the tip after the fourth. Soldering was all 16ga wires to spade tips. It went back and got my money returned. Junk.

[Boyd Gathwright]

.... Another GOOD quality product :D.

.

[Jim W. White]

I have a name brand one and it is just as useless!!

BAD design.

Jim in Idaho

[Richard Kagen]

thought it would be good to teach my son to solder -- total POS

[Anthony Anderson]

I too thought this sounded like a good idea. I did some research on the internet before I bought, and the consensus was pretty much the same as the posts here. The tool is pretty much useless. It seems hard to believe that R&D or Quality Control did discover these problems before this tool made it to market. Save your money. Regards, Bill

[Rob Will]

junk .

[Michael Fross]

Well, this stinks. I just got one for Christmas and have not yet used it. Maybe I'll get lucky, but after reading these posts I'm not very optimistic.

*sigh*

Michael

[Brian Keith]

Got mine for Christmas last year and came with wire strippers. First use of the strippers and it broke in half(HAHAHA). I tried to solder with the cold heat and nothing happened. Piece of SHEEETTT. I talked to a HD salesman the other day and he told me that when they first came out they had the Coleman name on them which lasted about two weeks. Tells you something.

[Burt Alcantara]

Well, well. Now I don't feel so bad nor do I feel as bad about HF. Glad to see all the concurrency. Cold Cold is packed up and ready for a return to HF.

[Glen Blanchard]

Not long ago I saw a segment on the local news - one of those consumer product oriented segments - about one of these "cold" soldering irons. Their conclusion? All that has already been mentioned. Don't waste your money.

[Don Stanley]

I've never used Cold Heat soldering gun, and have always been suspicious of the product. Do they use regular solder, or is it something special?

Bottom line is the material being soldered, must be hot enough to melt the solder. Not a problem for a couple of little earphone wires, but what about 1" copper pipe? Cold Heat sounds like something for nothing!:rolleyes:

-Don

[Hans Loeblich]

I've never used Cold Heat soldering gun, and have always been suspicious of the product. Do they use regular solder, or is it something special?

Bottom line is the material being soldered, must be hot enough to melt the solder. Not a problem for a couple of little earphone wires, but what about 1" copper pipe? Cold Heat sounds like something for nothing!:rolleyes:

-Don
How it works:
The tip of the "iron" is forked, made of a material resembling graphite. To solder a joint, you have to make electrical contact on the target with both parts of the fork. Once you do this, it basically sends all the current that 4AAs will provide across this gap. The resistance of this junction creates enough heat to melt real solder. When you are done soldering the junction, the tip of the iron cools very quickly(2-5 seconds maybe) because the material in the tip does not retain much heat, hence why they call it "cold" heat.

Unfortunately it can be tricky to get a good electrical connection between the two parts of the tip, you can't use the exact same techniques you would with a regular solering iron and expect it to work the same.

It puts out just enough energy to melt solder if the junction is small enough(something that doesn't dissipate heat quickly), but as you said Don, you definitely can't solder some copper pipe with it.

One other thing to note, I used it for puting together a small pcb kit I had, and I was able to complete the project with it. But, since there is live voltage going through the tip, you have to be careful not to touch any more than the single point you are soldering. At one point I accidentally touched two neighboring contacts on the pcb and an led on the my project board lit up! Luckily it didn't damage anything, but I realized at that point there was a potential risk going on there when soldering closely spaced delicate components.

I hate to completely bash the product, cause I still think it's an interesting concept, just not terribly practical. I haven't really used it since soldering that pcb, but I know that it can work for some things.

If you are interested in a wireless solering iron, you might try a butane soldering iron. I have one of these also and I think it is pretty handy. I haven't used it a ton, but it did help a couple times when doing electrical work in my car out in my apartment parking lot. It will put out more heat than "cold heat" and is a bit more versatile with it's different tips.
Here is a review
http://www.dansdata.com/portasol.htm

[Don Stanley]

Thanks.

-Don

[Dave Fifield]

I have an original Coleman one (which I bought from Costco). I only purchased it to see how/how well it worked. It didn't impress me - had all the same problems as noted above. I never got around to taking it back. I have no idea where it is now....buried at the bottom of a junk box somewhere no doubt! If I ever find it again, it's going in the trash.

Save your money. If you want a portable soldering iron, get a normal 110V AC one (50W Weller is probably the best US value for money) and one of those little 100W DC-AC power inverters (12V car battery to 110V AC). I keep a setup like this in my truck - it works great!

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

If it sounds too good to be true - - - - -

Cold heat?

[Kyle Kraft]

Save it for a white elephant gift exchange. Thats what I do with anything that's non-returnable junk!

[Jim Dailey]

Hans,
Thank You for a very informative review. I "was" interested in one of these cold soldering irons.... I think I will save my coins for....

And Thank You to the rest who shared their experiences.

jim

[Pete Brown]

I've never used Cold Heat soldering gun, and have always been suspicious of the product. Do they use regular solder, or is it something special?

Bottom line is the material being soldered, must be hot enough to melt the solder. Not a problem for a couple of little earphone wires, but what about 1" copper pipe? Cold Heat sounds like something for nothing!:rolleyes:

-Don

It's basically a tiny resistance soldering iron. The real deal (http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?MerchantID=RET01229&Action=Catalog&Type=Product&ID=80462A) (usually around $400) is highly prized in the brass models community. It's the only thing that can reliably heat up a delicate detail on an HO (1:87.1) or O scale model railroad engine (http://www.victorianweb.org/cv/models/apg/locos/5b.html) in order to solder it in place without melting other pieces off off.

I've not heared good things about the Cold Heat version.

Pete

[Don Stanley]

It's basically a tiny resistance soldering iron. The real deal (http://www.ares-server.com/Ares/Ares.asp?MerchantID=RET01229&Action=Catalog&Type=Product&ID=80462A) (usually around $400) is highly prized in the brass models community. It's the only thing that can reliably heat up a delicate detail on an HO (1:87.1) or O scale model railroad engine (http://www.victorianweb.org/cv/models/apg/locos/5b.html) in order to solder it in place without melting other pieces off off.

I've not heared good things about the Cold Heat version.

Pete

I understand the theory behind this tool! I accidently touched my metal wrist watch band across the terminals of a big low voltage power supply, with several huge capacitors. That sucker heated the band in a heart beat - burned the crap out of my wrist.:mad:

-Don